In the ongoing battle between the gardener and undesirable vegetation within a garden or lawn, there exists a multitude of devices and methods for extricating, chopping, removing and otherwise doing away with undesirable vegetation. These devices and methods include the use of: chemicals, such as herbicides; hand held implements, such as garden trowels; powered implements, such as string or monofilament line edgers and cutters, such as, for example, "weed-eater" type devices; and, of course, the old standby method of "on-the-knees" weeding using the hands for implements. However, none of these devices and methods has allowed the gardener to quickly and easily win the war against undesirable vegetation within the lawn or garden arena.
Although generally safe for use in close proximity to surrounding desirable vegetation, some of these devices and methods, such as hand troweling and weeding by hand, are slow, tedious and laborious. Other devices and methods, such as string edgers and herbicides, although more rapid and less labor intensive than hand troweling and weeding by hand, pose a serious danger to surrounding desirable vegetation when used. It would be a benefit, therefore, to have a device that would rapidly remove and/or destroy undesirable vegetation without being labor intensive and which at the same time was safe for use around desirable vegetation within a lawn or garden setting.
There have been various attempts to provide devices and methods which achieve rapid and safe, rapid removal or destruction of undesirable vegetation in close proximity to desirable vegetation within a lawn or garden. A list of prior patents which may be of interest is provided below:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 1,610,161 Russell 12/07/26 2,968,903 Kesling 01/24/61 3,129,771 Lidstone 04/21/64 3,807,151 Rosenthal et al 04/30/74 4,293,041 Holmstadt et al 10/06/81 4,501,332 Straayer 02/26/85 4,862,682 Wait 09/05/89 ______________________________________
U.S. Pat. No. 1,610,161, to Russell, issued on Dec. 7, 1926, discloses a rotary hoe or chopper having a cutting tilling member rotating in a plane substantially parallel to the ground surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,968,903, to Kesling, issued on Jan. 24, 1961, discloses a lawn edge trimmer having a guard and grass lifter unit. The guard and grass lifter unit includes a U-shaped bracket supporting a star shaped unit. The star shaped unit is positioned below a cutting blade. As the trimmer is moved along the edge of a walk, the star shaped unit engages and lifts the grass which is then cut by the cutting blade.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,129,771, to Lidstone, issued on Apr. 21, 1964, discloses a cultivating tool having a metal rod having one end portion sharpened to a point and having affixed adjacent to the end point a plurality of teeth or tines. As the metal rod rotates, the sharpened end portion penetrates into the soil while the teeth or tines cut and macerate the surrounding soil.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,151, to Rosenthal et al, issued on Apr. 30, 1974, discloses a trimmer-edger including a housing supported for movement on wheels. The housing encloses the motor and defines a cutting chamber in which a rotary blade is disposed. A guard plate which swings away about an axis parallel to the axis of rotation of the rotary blade is included to facilitate access to the blade for maintenance and for cleaning out the cutting chamber.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,041, to Holmstadt et al, issued on Oct. 6, 1981, discloses a hand-held power driven cultivator that includes a pair of ground working implements or tillers. The tillers are counter-rotated and include interdigitating tines which engage and move the earth forwardly.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,332, to Straayer, issued on Feb. 2, 1985, discloses a hand-carried, portable weeder/cultivator apparatus for weeding and cultivating small areas. The apparatus includes an inverted dish-shaped element rigidly attachable to a conventional string-type edger for converting conventional above ground string-type weeders into a below ground weeder/cultivator.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,682, to Wait, issued on Sep. 5, 1989, discloses a blade assembly including a U-shaped blade used for tilling the soil.
A review of these prior patents show that they do not suggest or teach the innovating, utilitarian, valuable advances of the present invention.
For example, none of the aforementioned devices has provided a means for rapidly, and safely removing and/or destroying unwanted vegetation in close proximity to desirable vegetation that poses little or no danger to the desired vegetation or to the user or provided such a device in which a protective guard is free floating or resiliently biased so that it falls or moves down under the force of gravity or the biasing force into a protective mode when the device is in use to cut above the ground, but readily retracts due to ground contact when the cutter mechanism is lowered down into the ground to macerate the weed roots and till the surrounding soil.